Earlier quoted context omitted.
The #1 thing that makes the web uniquely great is that all you need to do to access a program is to paste a short string into a box, and your browser takes care of the rest. Anyone can slap a website onto a server they control, and anyone in the world can then access it. Outside that one advantage, web applications (not talking about simple documents here) are worse in almost every way than native applications. (It’s…
Yeah, I wouldn't mind being able to write something like QT for the web.
Web Assembly
61–70 of 70 posts
Re: Web Assembly
#62Why can't virtualization and containing of the app be done on a OS level? Why do we need the browser to run "web" apps?
Which OS?
Re: Web Assembly
#63With the adoption of wasm, won't the web become inherently less hackable? Right now i can pretty-print some minified js and at least have a basic idea of what APIs are getting called. Difficult to see how one could do the same with wasm. Not saying wasm is a bad idea (i think it's good), I'm just concerned about what this will look like in terms of keeping the nuts and bolts of the web semi-readable.
For sure one will come up with nm or dumpbin for wasm, if they really want to.
Re: Web Assembly
#64With the adoption of wasm, won't the web become inherently less hackable? Right now i can pretty-print some minified js and at least have a basic idea of what APIs are getting called. Difficult to see how one could do the same with wasm. Not saying wasm is a bad idea (i think it's good), I'm just concerned about what this will look like in terms of keeping the nuts and bolts of the web semi-readable.
Why does it need to be semi-readable? Why does it need to be readable at all?
Re: Web Assembly
#65Been checking in on this since the initial hubbub a few months ago... It would be great if it started to swing into high gear. I'm still in love with the idea of a language-agnostic, web-centric compilation target, but I think we should all emotionally prepare for 10+ years before it's feasible to use in production, let alone well-integrated with our favorite languages.
I'd guess 3-5 if you look at most penetration once an initial implementation takes hold in browsers... now, you may have upwards of 30-40% of people not covered by a feature, but that doesn't mean you can't target it... it comes down to your audience... If MS actually keeps its' promise of rolling releases, or closer to it this time, it could be much sooner than later.
This doesn't require browser support though. https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/FAQ.md#can...
Re: Web Assembly
#66As someone who works in the web space, albeit on the back-end, can anyone explain why a project like this is desired over a better language / run-time?
The idea of a good language evolves over time, and varies among people. Look at how many languages transpile to JavaScript today. If you ask the users of those languages, they'll tell that their language is the "better language" you're looking for.
Yep, I wrote a blog post about this not too long ago:
http://www.elevatesoft.com/blog?action=view&id=why_limit_web...
From the post, there's this very illuminating link that I'm sure most here have already seen:
https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu...
That's a pretty long list. :-)
Re: Web Assembly
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'll be able to reverse engineer. Interpreting JS is a massive waste of CPU/battery for the majority of users. The savings is worth a slight increase in complexity for developers.
The solution to high CPU/battery usage is to send a static page . Invoking a new type of VM may help slightly , but it probably just moves the problem around.
There's no reason to limit the web to static pages. How would you do this with a static page https://benedikt-bitterli.me/tantalum/tantalum.html ? Or http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/03/upshot/the-bes... Or https://play.freeciv.org/ Or anything on this page http://www.kongregate.com/ or, you know, Facebook or Twitter or Google Maps/Books/Docs/Photos...?
Re: Web Assembly
#68Been checking in on this since the initial hubbub a few months ago... It would be great if it started to swing into high gear. I'm still in love with the idea of a language-agnostic, web-centric compilation target, but I think we should all emotionally prepare for 10+ years before it's feasible to use in production, let alone well-integrated with our favorite languages.
Things are definitely picking up speed! There are already a bunch of awesome community implementations of the MVP WebAssembly spec [0][1][2]. Meanwhile, the V8 [3], SpiderMonkey [4], Chakra [5], and JSC [6] teams have all started work on implementing wasm in actual browser engines. We've still got a long ways to go, but it's much nearer than 10+ years! [0]: https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasm-jit-prototype [1]: https…
Very happy to hear this! I greatly appreciate an update from the inside
Re: Web Assembly
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of a good language evolves over time, and varies among people. Look at how many languages transpile to JavaScript today. If you ask the users of those languages, they'll tell that their language is the "better language" you're looking for.
Yep, I wrote a blog post about this not too long ago: http://www.elevatesoft.com/blog?action=view&id=why_limit_web... From the post, there's this very illuminating link that I'm sure most here have already seen: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu... That's a pretty long list. :-)
Thanks, I hadn't even realised the scope of it, I really thought there was a dozen of them. This link is worth its own posting!
Re: Web Assembly
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of a good language evolves over time, and varies among people. Look at how many languages transpile to JavaScript today. If you ask the users of those languages, they'll tell that their language is the "better language" you're looking for.
Yep, I wrote a blog post about this not too long ago: http://www.elevatesoft.com/blog?action=view&id=why_limit_web... From the post, there's this very illuminating link that I'm sure most here have already seen: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu... That's a pretty long list. :-)
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